Committee for The Executive Office OFFICIAL REPORT (Hansard) Post-Brexit Common Frameworks: House of Lords Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee 9 December 2020 NORTHERN IRELAND ASSEMBLY Committee for The Executive Office Post-Brexit Common Frameworks: House of Lords Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee 9 December 2020 Members present for all or part of the proceedings: Mr Colin McGrath (Chairperson) Mr Doug Beattie (Deputy Chairperson) Ms Martina Anderson Mr Trevor Clarke Mr George Robinson Mr Pat Sheehan Ms Emma Sheerin Mr Christopher Stalford House of Lords Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee Baroness Andrews Chair Lord Bruce of Bennachie Lord Caine Baroness Crawley Lord McInnes of Kilwinning Lord Murphy of Torfaen Baroness Randerson Baroness Redfern Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick The Chairperson (Mr McGrath): Members of the House of Lords Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee are in attendance via StarLeaf so that we can give evidence to them as part of their inquiry. The Committee is specifically considering how the common frameworks programme will operate, how it will relate to other initiatives and how it could be reviewed and improved for the future. It will also look at the role of parliamentary scrutiny across the UK. Hopefully we can link up with the members of that Committee now, if the communications team can add everybody in. There are quite a number to add in there. If everyone who is on StarLeaf is able to mute themselves, they will not be competing to be seen on the main screen. Perhaps Elizabeth Andrews will unmute herself, if she is on. Baroness Andrews (Chair, House of Lords Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee): Hello, Mr McGrath. Kay Andrews here. It is very good to see you and very good to hear you. Mr McGrath: Excellent. We are in your hands, then, Kay. We are delighted to be able to provide evidence to you. A number of your members will have questions. The etiquette that we are leaning towards is that, if you want to direct a question to me, I will offer it to a member of our Committee to 1 answer. If the questions come via you and the answers come via me, we will keep good order between us. Baroness Andrews: We can certainly try. Thank you very much. There are quite a lot of us on this call. It is very good to see you, and I want to thank you for your time and for your Committee's support for this inquiry. We will not have time to introduce ourselves individually, except when we ask our questions, but I am sure that you know people on this call already, and we are all extremely good friends. Some members of our Committee are absent because we have competing business in the Chamber, and there will be a few imminent and rather important votes. However, we will be able to manage that on our phones. We only have a short time, so we have a small number of questions, but they are important. We have been taking evidence from Wales and Scotland, from Ministers, academics and stakeholders, and it is a great pleasure now to get your views on how the process of the common frameworks programme is working and how you see the parliamentary scrutiny working [Interruption.] We will carry on, I think. What we are intending to do, of course, is to ensure that our Governments work as closely as possible together and that our future scrutiny will be robust and effective. Your evidence today about that process and about parliamentary relationships is extremely important to us, so thank you again. I am going to start off, if I may, with a very basic question. What role has the Northern Ireland Assembly been playing so far in scrutinising the common frameworks with regard to your relationship with the Northern Ireland Executive during the process? What is your impression of the common frameworks programme to date, Mr McGrath? Mr McGrath: Thank you very much for that question. Please refer to me as Colin. Only the police or my mother refer to me as "Mr McGrath", at times when I am in trouble. Baroness Andrews: Happily I’ll do that. Mr McGrath: I was apprehensive of presenting to your Committee, because I feel that there is a deficit. We really do not have extensive knowledge of the common frameworks, what they are or what they are going to do. The Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive have a unique position compared to the other devolved Administrations. The others, by and large, have a unified approach from their Government, whereas here we have a disputed position. Our Committee scrutinises the role of the Executive Office, and, in that office, there are competing opinions and outcomes wanted from the process of Brexit. As a result, getting agreement within that office for information, perspective and approach can be difficult. That is not to level blame at one side or the other. It is just a pretty human answer. If two people have differing views on something, asking them to get an agreed view, which they then present to this Committee for scrutiny, is going to be a very difficult process. Thus far, only four common frameworks have had to be presented to the Assembly. I understand that one is at our Infrastructure Committee, one at our Justice Committee and two at our Health Committee, although I could stand corrected. That is where the four of them are currently. Those individual Committees will be providing a certain amount of scrutiny to the nuts and bolts of what that common framework will actually do, why it is required and how it can be delivered within that Department. Even in taking that, because of the nature of our five-party Executive, that means that there is an Ulster Unionist Department, a DUP Department and an SDLP Department that are providing scrutiny and to be coordinated by an Executive Office which is headed by Sinn Féin and the DUP. All the competing views and opinions are there. We often use the adage that Brexit is a form of divorce. Like a couple of families on the periphery during a divorce, there are some things that you just do not talk about. Here, people's views and perspectives have impacted on how an official position is got to. Ultimately, that causes a democratic deficit of a form, because we are not really getting the capacity to scrutinise the governance of the common frameworks. The individual Committees are still getting that opportunity to investigate the nuts and bolts of how that common framework will work in practice. We know that you have requested that the devolved Executives and Governments present to you, and you have found it difficult to secure somebody from here. Other Committees in the House of Commons and the House of Lords that have sought input from the devolved Administrations have had that input from Wales and Scotland, but have not been able to secure it from here. To sum up, Kay, there is quite a shortage in the things that we are not talking about, rather than in the things we are talking about. 2 Baroness Andrews: Thank you very much indeed, Colin. That was an extremely helpful explanation and introduction for us. These are novel and innovative processes anyway. We saw the Minister last week, and she said that we could expect 30 such frameworks by the end of the year in some shape or form. We all have our work cut out. However, I am very glad that we have a chance to talk [Inaudible.] Lord Caine (House of Lords Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee): Hi, Colin. Can you hear me OK? Mr McGrath: Yes, we can indeed, Jonathan. It is good to see you again. Lord Caine: It is good to see you and all those Committee members whom I have had extensive dealings with over the years. It is very good to talk to you. I have three rapid questions, two of which you actually touched on in your reply to Kay, but I will fire away anyway. First, how engaged do you think the Northern Ireland Executive have been with the common frameworks programme? I know from experience that the Northern Ireland Office was involved in common frameworks from 2017 until the Executive were restored in January, but how disadvantaged do you think Northern Ireland was in the common frameworks process due to the lack of an Executive and Assembly for three years? Finally, at the risk of being slightly more controversial, what concerns do Committee members have about the possibility of divergence between Northern Ireland and Great Britain? Mr McGrath: I will pass to the Deputy Chair, Doug Beattie, to answer that question. Mr Beattie: Lord Caine, it is really good to see you. You are looking as young as ever. Lord Caine: Thank you. Doug, call me Jonathan, please. I say that to everybody. Mr Beattie: Jonathan, you hit a really good point. The fact that we had no devolved government for such a long period really has put us on the back foot. With everything that is coming down the tracks, we had a really difficult body of work to do before COVID came into it, and that has made it even worse. There is a real attempt to try to make up that deficit and to engage as much as we possibly can. I think that the Executive are doing a good job in trying to catch up, but we are still on catch-up, and therefore we are maybe not getting all the information from the top all the way down to the scrutiny Committees so that the scrutiny Committees can really understand how these frameworks are working and how they are going to impact as a whole.